Watch out world, China’s high-tech chip-making ambitions have just taken a big step forward.

Just a week after an unprecedented lockdown was lifted in its virus-stricken hometown of Wuhan, Yangzte Memory Technologies Co. Ltd. has just unveiled a flash memory chip that it says can compete with leading-edge products from global giants like Samsung, which dominate the global market for the key component used in smartphones and other computing devices.

The company said its new 128-layer NAND flash memory chip, the X2-6070, has passed sample verification by several partners — a key step before mass production can begin. It added that actual mass production could begin as soon as the end of this year, or by the first half of 2021.

The chips are the densest produced to date by any Chinese company for NAND — meaning they have similar storage capacity to the most widely used chips now on the market. The chips will come in two specifications, one with 1.33Tb and one with 512Gb of memory.

NAND is one of two main types of computer memory, the other being DRAM. The market is currently dominated by the likes of Samsung, Western Digital, Micron Technology and Kioxia, the company formerly known as Toshiba Memory. But China wants to break into the space as part of its broader ambitions to become more self-reliant in high-tech microchips.

Contact reporter Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)

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